Police mistakenly identify three Pokémon Go players as drug dealers

The fervor around Pokémon Go is understandable. Ever since the game made its debut earlier this week, people have been out on the streets trying to find and catch Pokémon scattered around their neighborhoods, often leading to hilarious outcomes. However, things went awry for a 40-year-old user trying to hunt Pokémon at 3AM.

From the Reddit thread:

Couldn’t sleep so I downloaded the game and took a 3am walk. There is a little park a few blocks from me that had like three pokestops and a gym, so I wandered over there to see what the game could offer. Picked up an Evee outside my house and a couple of trash pokes on the way to the park.

So I get there and wander around a little checking out the stops and rustling around in the tall grass, then decide to go a few blocks away to see a couple more stops when I hear from the darkness a “Yo, my man!” Turning I see two sketchy looking dudes sitting on a bench in the dark. I must have walked right past them without noticing them Great. One of them waves “My man, check over by the blue truck over there we got an onyx earlier.”

So I wander over by the truck and sure enough there’s a fucking onyx there. Awesome. So I end up chatting with the guys for a bit, told em where I got my evee, they convinced me to join red team when I hit level five so we could “lock shit down” in the neighbourhood.

Then the cop shows up.

Yeah, so it turns out two twentysomething black dudes and a forty year old white guy chilling in the park at 3am looks strange. It took a bit of talking to convince the cop we weren’t doing a drug deal, and a bit longer to explain the game. Then the cop downloaded the fucking game on his phone and asked us how to get started.

Not sure as to what all the fuss is about? Here’s what you need to know about the augmented reality game:

Pokémon Go is available in select regions right now, with developer Niantic’s servers overloaded from the sheer mass of users playing the game. In the meantime, be sure to check out our extensive coverage of the game.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go beginner’s guideHow to track and find nearby PokémonHow to catch PokémonHow to place Lures to catch PokémonHow to use Incense to catch PokémonHow to evolve and level up PokémonHow to win gym battles and earn coinsHow to be lazy and play on the couchHow to fix crashes and server errorsHow to download Pokemon Go outside the U.S.Pokemon Go help and discussion forum